by Stephen M. Lewis
DigitalSports Richmond
L.C. Bird girls basketball coach Chevette Waller was being a realist and an excellent motivator at the same time early Wednesday.
“What I told him is to bring both jerseys,” Waller said, “because we may be doing inventory tonight. I guess they didn’t want to do it.”
The Skyhawks will hold on to their jerseys at least a couple more days as they took out Atlee 54-50 in the Central Region quarterfinals Wednesday night.
The Raiders were ranked first in the final DigitalSports Top 10 and were one of three No. 1 girls seeds to go down Wednesday.
Central District No. 1 Meadowbrook, ranked second in the final poll, fell to Monacan in overtime and Dominion top seed Cosby lost to Thomas Dale.
The Skyhawks will face Monacan Friday at 7:45 p.m. in the second semifinal at VCU’s Siegel Center, partly because of a defense that limited the high-scoring Raiders to 50 points.
Atlee scored no less than 68 points in six of their past eight games until Wednesday.
“You’ve got to give all the credit to Bird and they’re preparation,” Atlee first-year coach Anna Prillaman said. “They played really, really good halfcourt defense. Didn’t throw out the bells and whistles. Just kept it simple and play good, solid halfcourt defense against us. I think they were giving us some man-to-man defense we haven’t seen this year.”
Bird gave Atlee a taste of their own medicine as well with timely 3-point shooting from Jasmine Reynolds. The senior buried a huge bomb late for her 13th point.
With Bird up two with 1:34 to go, star Ruthanne Doherty (15 points) missed the front end of a one-and-one.
But the carom found Reynolds behind the 3-point line. Instead of backing it out to **** time and make the Raiders foul, Reynolds launched it to give Bird a five-point advantage.
“I should’ve and could’ve held the ball,” Reynolds said. “But at the moment, I was already feeling it. So I was like, hey, why not?”
Said Waller of Reynolds: “At the beginning of the season we kind of bumped heads. She’s definitely one of the most improved players.”
The lead was short lived as Atlee’s Britt Hill (10 points) raced it up and found Sydney Henderson on the wing. She buried her own 3-pointer to slice the lead back to two. Henderson finished with 18 points on the night, a game- and team-high.
Then Reynolds missed a one-and-one, but Hill couldn’t knock in the layup at the other end. Bird knocked in enough free throws from there to keep Atlee at bay.
“The second we’re put back on our heels we haven’t had a chance to deal with that,” Prillaman said. “I think with us blowing everybody out and having games where we’re winning by 20 we’ve never really had to chest that. I’ve tried to talk to them about mental toughness but you can’t really teach that. You have to experience it and we experienced it tonight.”
Bird took the lead as soon as Atlee star Richelle Price (10 points) went to the bench with two fouls with 2:17 left in the first quarter and never relinquished the advantage, though it was sliced to one or two points several times.
Bird responded each time, and it usually came from Doherty, but sometimes it came from lesser known players like Reynolds or Jordan Coles, who gave Waller great minutes late, including a pivotal bucket to hedge Bird out 45-40.
Bird fell to Atlee in the Times-Dispatch Invitational final. Monacan’s given them three of their six losses this season.
Can they turn the tables again?
L.C. Bird 18 8 13 15 – 54
Atlee 13 9 12 16 – 50
L.C. Bird (20-6): Vaughan 8, Robinson 0, Reynolds 13, Doherty 15, Sitton 11, Smith 4, Coles 3. Totals: 18 14-22 54. 3-point goals: Reynolds 3, Vaughan.
Atlee (20-3): Ashcraft 0, Gordon 2, Hill 10, Henderson 18, Lescalleet 0, Price 10, Martin 10. Totals: 20 5-7 50. 3-point goals: Price 2, Martin 2, Henderson.
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